I was struck by a muse and wrote an urban fantasy story. I’ve reproduced the first scene here; you can download the full PDF (40 pages) to read the rest.

1

I’ve never considered myself a “people person”. It isn’t that I don’t like people; I just never find the right thing to say, or end up doing something I later look back on with cringe-inducing horror. I mention this only to give you a notion of how deep in over my head I was from the moment I heard the faint knocking at my door.

It was a Friday, right around 8pm, and the last rays of dusk were filtering out of the sky. It started almost as a scratching, then escalated to a weak yet persistent tapping by the time I had navigated from the kitchenette, through the tight space of my apartment, to the front door.

I wasn’t expecting visitors, and the door’s peephole was non-functional (I had never worked up the courage to call a repair service), so I wrenched the door open knowing in the back of my mind that there was a roughly 30% chance that whatever stood on the other side wanted to kill me. But instead of a combatant, the body of a young woman, bloodied and weak, slumped through the doorway onto my carpet.

So four things quickly filtered through my mind in this moment. First I thought “oh shit.” That was quickly followed by the sinking realization that I was going to miss the TNG marathon later tonight. The last two came as I appraised the situation: it was no mere coincidence that this girl had chosen to rap on my door, and that literally the last thing I should do at this moment was phone the police.

I kicked into action. Although my interpersonal skills may be lacking, I do know a good amount of first-aid. I dragged her body into the cramped interior of my apartment and laid her on my couch. As I fetched my first-aid kit, I winced at the blood trail soaking into my carpet and upholstery.

Claw marks raked across her arms and back, and a gash on her scalp hinted at a treacherous fall. Fortunately for me (and her), it didn’t look like there was much internal damage besides maybe some fractured ribs. It would hurt to move and breathe for a few weeks, but she would recover. Judging by the head wound, she might also have suffered a light-to-moderate concussion. At least on this count, I thought as I started tending to the wounds, things could have gone a lot worse. I didn’t relish the idea of driving a half-dead girl with no relation to me to the hospital.

Of course, that was the least of my concerns at the moment. I mulled over several pieces of information that pointed to a whole lot of strife for me in the near future. First, she was a werewolf. I could smell it on her as clear as day. Second, she had been attacked by other werewolves – lingering scents pointed to a single pack. Third, after somehow escaping, she had – bleeding, in shock, and near-death — decided to head straight for my doorstep. If this didn’t already sound bad enough, it was made 10 times worse by the fact that I was a werewolf.

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It was just another ordinary day: I was letting Wikipedia impress human knowledge upon me. Suddenly, as happens often, a mildly interesting idea sparked within my mind.

To begin, let me explain some of the things I was looking at. Magnetoreception, for example, is an incredible phenomenon that seems drawn straight from science fiction. Yet, in nature it is fairly common. Of course, we only have inklings about how the mechanisms behind it might operate. To sum it up, many animals have the ability to detect magnetic fields and use them to navigate. This can be seen in migratory animals, for example. In addition, some aquatic creatures have the ability to detect the faint electrical impulses given off by other animals nearby; it aids them in hunting.

Moving into the realm of human-enabled abilities, I was looking at radio-frequency hearing, which is actually a quite common occurrence. As the name suggests, people have been known to hear sounds, ranging from buzzing to knocking (similar to the sounds of tinnitus) and seeming to originate from above and behind the head, when electromagnetic waves in the frequency of microwaves (300 MHz to 300 GHz) are within their vicinity. As it turns out, this is caused not by vibrations in the eardrum but by slight expansion of brain tissue within the skull creating pressure waves which stimulate the inner ear. Pretty crazy, right?

Then I remembered a documentary video I had seen about a guy who exhibited immunity to electricity. I looked it up, and it turns out that there are a couple of people like that. It comes from having naturally thick and dry skin, which increases resistance and lowers the amperes to a non-lethal level. The areas of the body which this applies to ranges from just hands to full-body and mouth.

On the level of increasingly bogus, take a look at this video, in which a Chinese man living in Java claims to be able to control Chi (funky electricity). I don’t believe it myself, but the video was well done and it looked credible enough.

Anyways, this got me to thinking about the show Heroes. Franchises which share that premise, such as x-men, try to explain the super-powers scientifically, but then introduce ridiculous powers (like vortex generation). I think that a movie/show in which both the super-heroes and the super-villains are both relatively mediocre would be excellent. For instance, one person might have the ability to regrow limbs, eyes, and organs not unlike a Caudata; and like a salamander, it would take them 2-3 years to regrow something like an arm. They would be able to afford being stabbed or shot or losing a finger, but they wouldn’t immediately be back in the fight. People could have enhanced magnetoception, RF hearing, electrical resistance, and electrical generation.

On the same thread, I highly dislike explanations that involve either the “10% of the brain” cliche, or the entire “brain wave” concept. Both are unbased in reality and are overused. Powers would be strictly based on phenomena that occur in the natural world. Devices that rely on technological concepts that have been conceived of but not yet well mapped out would be out. As a corollary, Batman-esque powers (i.e. being rich) would be discouraged for super-heroes. Super-villains, of course, almost always need to be rich. More important than riches is genre-sight (or lack of Genre Blindness), and awareness of things like the List of 100 Things to not to do as an Evil Overlord. Their mediocrity would lie in their plans and powers, not intelligence.

That train of thought can be taken a couple of stations farther. The villains may ultimately be more likeable than the heroes. Since the heroes have weak powers, they obviously have personality flaws (like Watchmen) as well (e.g. Superman is almost invincible, so he is almost perfect) and poor planning. Overall, however, both the heroes and the villains are playing a losing game. The villains’ plans aren’t that devastating (except for the occasional climax of a world-threatening plot), and the heroes are disliked by the media due to their imperfections.

Looking farther into the universe, the news of real super-heroes would no doubt spawn a wave of popularity within certain sects. Eccentric individuals or crazed fans would take a low-powered Batman approach and utilize cool pieces of technology for crime fighting, such as d3o or this (the guy made it himself for about $35,000, although prototyping cost him nearly half a million):

That was the essential fabric of my idea, but it could definitely use some ironing.